Apple TV Software iOS 5 Features

While missing from today's announcements, Apple TV will also receive an iOS 5 software update.

Based on the developer beta, we already know it gets:

- AirPlay Mirroring
- Photo Stream support
- New screen savers

Also, Eddie Cue showed a new UI for purchased TV shows at today's keynote. However, I wouldn't be surprised to see a new UI for iCloud Music among other new features coming in the next software update.

Edit: Looks like Music is coming.

"So you can see what you’ve bought — no matter which device you bought it on. You can access your purchase history from the iTunes Store on your iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, Mac, PC, or Apple TV. And since you already own the songs, albums, or TV shows in your purchase history, you can tap to download them to any of your devices."

Attached Files:

While missing from today's announcements, Apple TV will also receive an iOS 5 software update.

Based on the developer beta, we already know it gets:

- AirPlay Mirroring

Click to expand...

While reading the excerpt on iOS 5 from the apple.com site it says:

Quote

Wow your audience in the board room, classroom, or living room. AirPlay now supports video mirroring. Which means you can wirelessly  and securely  stream whatevers on your iPad 2 or iPhone 4S to your HDTV via Apple TV. Everyone in the room sees exactly whats on your iPad or iPhone display up on the big screen  even when you rotate your device from portrait to landscape or zoom in and out.2

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Does this mean I can't stream from my iPhone 4, but only the iPhone 4S and iPad 2?

such a bummer about no iphour or ipad1 support for AirPlay mirroring. The way I see it, you really need to devices to support AirPlay mirroring to the atv2... 1 to stream Hulu and the other to check fb or reddit while you are watching your show. All of which is ridiculous (not because of the obvious sensory overload), but because there are a barely used A4 and 8 gigs of storage sitting dormant inside of this hockey puck next to my TV. Anyone know if app developers will try to prevent thee content from being mirrored? Are the rights issues from some media distribution services?

Wow your audience in the board room, classroom, or living room. AirPlay now supports video mirroring. Which means you can wirelessly  and securely  stream whatevers on your iPad 2 or iPhone 4S to your HDTV via Apple TV. Everyone in the room sees exactly whats on your iPad or iPhone display up on the big screen  even when you rotate your device from portrait to landscape or zoom in and out.2

Wow your audience in the board room, classroom, or living room. AirPlay now supports video mirroring. Which means you can wirelessly  and securely  stream whatevers on your iPad 2 or iPhone 4S to your HDTV via Apple TV. Everyone in the room sees exactly whats on your iPad or iPhone display up on the big screen  even when you rotate your device from portrait to landscape or zoom in and out.2

Click to expand...

I understand that, in marketing material, their features are going to be presented as working their best while tying in through the company's newest aspirational hardware (in this case the iPad2 and iPhone 4S). It is not, by any means, a statement of exclusivity to that hardware.

Wow your audience in the board room, classroom, or living room. AirPlay now supports video mirroring. Which means you can wirelessly  and securely  stream whatevers on your iPad 2 or iPhone 4S to your HDTV via Apple TV. Everyone in the room sees exactly whats on your iPad or iPhone display up on the big screen  even when you rotate your device from portrait to landscape or zoom in and out.2

Apple's never going to bring AirPlay mirroring to the iPad 1 or iPhone 4. But it could well be possible to do it by jailbreaking. The only thing is that AirPlay mirroring requires real-time encoding of the screen contents to an H.264 video stream, and the older hardware might not be able to keep up.

Airplay mirroring requires the A5 processor. The A5 has a graphics processor that is 9x more powerful than the A4. The A5 is so powerful it can mirror and display 1080p on two screens at once with ease. The A4 struggles with 1080p even on just one screen. And it can't do 720p on two different screens. That's why mirroring only works with the 4S and iPad 2.

With that being said, I'm not a huge fan of mirroring. I like the apps that actually support Video Airplay because that allows you to use the phone/tablet for other things while Airplaying video to the tv.

Using Airplay mirroring is only a fallback for when the app itself doesn't support Video Airplay.

Apparently Hulu was able to detect whether Airplay mirroring is turned on on your iPad2, and inhibit their videos from playing until you've turned mirroring off.

That said, one could potentially play Hulu on your computer, use something like SplashTop remote to view that on your iPad2, and then Airplay mirror THAT to the Apple TV. . . but what a hassle.

For Hulu on the apple tv, I'd recommend just jailbreaking your ATV2 using Firecore's Seasonpass utility. I've been watching Hulu (regular Hulu, not Hulu plus) WITHOUT COMMERCIALS this way on my ATV2 for about a month now. No problems and looks great. Plus you're not tasking another iOS device.

Airplay mirroring requires the A5 processor. The A5 has a graphics processor that is 9x more powerful than the A4. The A5 is so powerful it can mirror and display 1080p on two screens at once with ease. The A4 struggles with 1080p even on just one screen. And it can't do 720p on two different screens. That's why mirroring only works with the 4S and iPad 2.

With that being said, I'm not a huge fan of mirroring. I like the apps that actually support Video Airplay because that allows you to use the phone/tablet for other things while Airplaying video to the tv.

Using Airplay mirroring is only a fallback for when the app itself doesn't support Video Airplay.

Click to expand...

What about the iPod touch? That does AirPlay but doesn't it still only use an A4 chip?

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